In any industry, managers always try to extract the best possible performance from their teams. This is especially true in football and is perfectly illustrated when a typical football manager spouts a plethora of clichés with regards to a preferred player.
Phrases such as the mathematically challenging 'they give 110% effort every time' or the impractical outcome of 'running their socks off', while rather meaningless if taken literally, make a clear point. Managers have a vested interest in maintaining an asset who is really willing to work hard and generate as much value as they can, and it makes sense for managers to do everything to encourage this. So taking the lead from the world of professional sports, how does this correlate with business travel and more importantly with your travel programme?
For many organisations, extensive international travel by staff has become the norm rather than the exception. Continued globalisation has meant that a Manchester-based company might now have more business connections to Shanghai than to London. Of course, while suppliers and customers might be further away than ever before, companies cannot afford to be disconnected from the locations that matter to them. When UK business travellers estimate that an average of 40% of their time travelling is unproductive, it is important to keep those travellers connected to their work when they are on the road.
But staying connected requires an investment. Not only a monetary and time investment, but a personal investment as well. Consider the difference between sending a traveller to a sales pitch in China compared to attending a meeting in their home country. What is the real impact on the individual sent to close a deal? Travelling can be a draining and disorienting experience and it affects us all differently. As a travel manager, if you view business travel as a cost which should always be minimised are you really encouraging the best performance from your team?
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Fatigue impacts productivity and potentially the business © FlairImages/iStock
Are you going to mandate that your traveller arrive in China only one day before their big pitch because it's cheaper and still expect them to perform to the best of their abilities? If they come back without having closed the deal because they felt tired, or jetlagged, who is really to blame for the outcome?
Aligning views
Organisations that have large numbers of staff on the move performing on behalf of the business should ensure they recalibrate their views on business travel. Like many facets of the way a business is run, finance or procurement departments are the ones who sign off on business travel budgets. But this only considers travel as an outgoing expenditure. But ask yourself — isn't the cost of a journey transformed into an investment if it results in new business?
Successful business travel requires both the travel managers and the travellers to align their views on what defines the best travel experience. Like champion sports teams, when everyone pulls in the same direction, the chances of success are increased. Practically speaking, this means that travellers should know what an acceptable level of spend is on their trip and travel managers should consider the emotional and physical impact of the journey on employees. Both of these need to be considered in the planning and the execution of the trip.
Top team performance
Once a business fully understands the impact of travel and makes the shift to considering it more of an investment, the next stage is to identify how to best optimise this investment. This is where the expertise of a modern, traveller-centric TMC generates real value for businesses.
Thanks to mobile devices and a host of online search tools, nearly everyone can find their own flights and accommodations. But typically these online tools don't actually allow insight into your eventual destination or choice of locations. Travel managers can not only draw on extensive experience, but also perfectly marry the cost benefits of online booking with the business value of offline expertise.
Business trips will be more enjoyable for the traveller if they are better planned. Everything from the locality of the hotel to the meeting point, the availability of WiFi or other work friendly amenities will maximise the productivity potential of the traveller. Not only do employers have a duty of care towards staff to ensure that they are safe and comfortable, they also have a vested interest in reducing the amount of time wasted while travelling.
This isn't to say that those travelling for business need to be working 24/7. But if you're sending someone on a two-hour flight, in the middle of the morning on a budget airline, can they really work effectively in a cramped space even though they are fully awake and alert? By contrast, are the conditions right for an employee to be effective when they're eight time zones away?
There is no off-season
At the end of each league season, football managers, coaches and directors get together to review the season that has just ended and decide where to make changes. As a result, players and managers change teams during the off-season as everyone seeks to make improvements on the previous year's performance. However for businesses, there is no off-season. There is no chance to review and make changes before the next important business trip that might be coming up.
This is why looking at travel management from just the point of cost is outdated and considering the impact on the traveller becomes paramount.
As firms begin to recognise the value of investing in business travel rather than merely seeking to reduce budgets at the expense of the traveller, they should see their business performance rise up the table. If a business trip resembles the travel you want to do more than travel you need to do — the whole experience is more productive and unlike in football, in the end, everybody wins.